Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Tuesday January 19, 1999 @07:55AM
from the its-about-time dept.

lstep writes "French Prime Minister said it all: "Complete liberty of cryptograhy in France" (well 128 bits).
Going from 40 to 128 bits is such a pleasure, and
no need to give my keys to any authority for
verification ! Documents are on (in French, sorry): here and
here.
I love France! " Hear that Uncle Sam? Pay Attention!

Umm, go back and read the article one more time. The US still allows more freedom of cryptography than France does. This bill will not ease export restrictions from France, just allow people in France to use cryptography themselves, something that we can already do in the US.

Now I'll be able to exchange encrypted E-mails with my parents... They're missionaries in France and, though they aren't French citizens, they're still subject to the laws of France because they live there.

Well, consider that this law only affects France. The rest of the world doesn't have this privilege. However, the law makes France an example. When crime does not rise significantly more and what rise there is (if any) cannot be blamed on crypto, governments will lose their only valid excuse to limit it: fear of encryption use in crime. This will spark protests which can only lead to free encryption for everyone, eventually.

So, we need to do whatever's possible tohelp this process along. Those Slashdotters who live in France can do much, but there's got to be something the others can do.

Looks like is not rumours anymore. They now have to submit it to the parliament, but that should pose no problem.

The second document is interesting, it covers a different topic. Translated excerpt:

1. To clarify the problem of author's right and multimedia

Note that "droit d'auteur" is slightly different from Intellectual Th^H^HProperty. It recognizes the role of the author as opposed to that of the owner of patents / copyright. Here, the author of an art work as a right (not necessarily monetary) even if he sold the work to someone else.

3. To accelerate free access to essential cultural data(...) priority to the needs of the public(...)A cultural "portal" will be created(...) It will be proposed as a free hosting service for cultural organizations under partnership with the govt.(...)

All of this seems extremely interesting as it sounds like it does not carry anything like it would have been influenced by commercial lobbies.

calm down. France's crypto-liberty is still significantly lower than the US's, according to this article. Not that teh US is such a great place for crypto, seeing that you can't export anything truly secure.

Note first that none of this has been implemented. It requires legislative reform, which can easily end up coopted by the business-as-usual mentality.

Second, note that we are only talking about 128 bit encryption, and it's not clear whether it will apply to all 128 bit encryption or (more likely) a set of approved programs. Since they are limiting the number of bits, they will require you to use an encryption program on the 'approved' list.

Third, note again that export is disallowed for anything stronger than 56-bit encryption, which is certainly not a strength of encryption which is safe from prying eyes.

Fourth (and this is unclear from my reading since I have no French and must rely on highly imperfect translations), some form of beefed-up law enforcement capability is included. Not sure what that's about, but it's unlikely to be good news.

You managed to put several pieces of desinformation in this little sentence. If this wasn't your intention, then I suggest you to change your sources of information. May I point to you that the US press, in general, is a very bad source for foreign news?

France didn't sue anybody. Some private association denounced an alleged infringement of the law. The whole thing didn't even get judged because that association didn't even file their complaint properly.

The alleged fact that this association received government subsidies is irrelevant. First, the government by itself can ask for penal inquiries without needing some private association to file a complaint. Second, dozens of associations get some subsidies; these are usually targeted at funding some precise project led by those associations and do not mean a general endorsement of their policies by the government.

Second: the accusation was not publishing a WWW site in English, but publishing ADVERTISEMENT in English only. The laws on wrongful advertisement in France are strict, and it was thought some years ago that it might be prudent to request at least subtitles on foreign language advertisements.

Whether or not the Georgia Tech Lorraine site contained advertisements targeted at the general French public was not judiciarily investigated.

Ah, also. The French government and its agencies publish WWW sites in multiple languages. I've yet to see US government official sites in French.